Big Hero 6

Disney has finally released the first trailer for this year's film from their animation studios:

Big Hero 6 will come out this November. You might be familiar with Disney's recent animated November releases: Frozen (2013), Wreck-it-Ralph (2012), and Tangled (2010). (2011 is conspicuously void of a Disney animated November release.)

Now, assuming you just watched the trailer, do you know what the film is about? Well, I'll tell you. It's a Marvel superhero property that Disney acquired when they bought all the Marvel properties. It's about a superhero team from Japan. Did you get that from the trailer? No?

Here's the official plot blurb about the movie:

Brilliant robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada finds himself in the grips of a criminal plot that threatens to destroy the fast-paced, high-tech city of San Fransokyo. With the help of his closest companion, a robot named Baymax, Hiro joins forces with a reluctant team of first-time crime fighters on a mission to save their city.Written by Walt Disney Animation Studios

Still not a whole lot of info. But I think this is actually Disney's new method of advertising their November releases. As you may have seen on this blog, Frozen's first trailer didn't give much context for the story or action or tone or characters or anything from the film. If you need a reminder, here's the first Frozen trailer (and BTW, the Big Hero 6 trailer is out almost a full month earlier than the first Frozen trailer):

Here are the similarities that I see:

• Comedic gags
• No real introduction to characters (at least the majority of characters)
• It's possible that this footage will not appear in the film
• No sense of the story
• What they heck are they actually advertising

If the marketing pattern holds true, then I suspect we'll see a real trailer in August or September (possibly attached to Guardians of the Galaxy), followed by a powerful TV commercial blitz during the ABC fall season. We'll see what happens in the long run.  

 

Well of Death

I would spend upwards of 20 dollars to see this in person.

As best I can tell, they build a big wooden circle (the well) on the fair grounds. They then drive cars and motorcycles, which mostly seem to be at least 15 years old and held together by regular reapplication of tape, along the sides of the well at a full 90 degrees from the normal orientation. They let people stand and sit at the top of the well, and they even let them hand money to the guys driving the cars and motorcycles. And did I make it clear that there are multiple vehicles on the walls at any given time, and the drivers don't maintain the standard driving posture?

In a word: Awesome!

There's probably something legal that prevents this kind of thing from happening in the US. I kinda wish that wasn't the case.

One element that I find especially enchanting is the wear and tear of the well. It's been used extensively, just like the vehicles. It has a kind of vintage feel that I like. I also think that is increases the sense of danger. For all I know the wooden boards could fall apart at any moment.

I don't know that I could ever convince myself to do that, even in a car that was new, but I would happily pay to watch these guys in action.

Frozen: A Commentary in Seven Posts (Seven)

Not as Good as Everyone Says?

Sadly, now that I've made it to this point, I don't know that I actually want to make an argument against "Frozen."

When I started this project I thought I had much more to say that was negative about the movie. I was a bit negative, perhaps, because other people seem to be unequivocally positive whiteout generally providing a critical analysis. At this point, I think I only like the film better than ever for having put it under seven straight days of scrutiny and contemplation. Despite the flaws that I have enumerated in the past week, it really is a charming film.

Here's what my real complaint is: I don't think it is good for the reasons it was supposed to be good, and I do think it was talked about for exactly the reasons it was intended to be talked about.

Here are some reasons people love it:
Disney-People love Disney
Music-People love music, especially when major Broadway musical stars (who sing inspiring songs in people's favorite OZ universe musical production) sing inspiring and powerful songs with a main purpose of winning an Oscar and a secondary purpose of giving a character a non-fulfilling declaration of newfound purpose. Not gonna lie, that sentence probably got away from me, and it might not all be true.
Sidekicks-People like fun sidekicks, and Olaf might be one of Disney's best.

Here are some reasons people were supposed to love it, but probably just talk about because it was expected:
Focus on sisterly and not romantic love
The big twist about the prince

That's actually all I can think that people have talked about since it came out…

Things people could have talked about much more:
Increased sophistication of the animation
Shared universe possibilities with "Tangled"

In summary: While "Frozen: will certainly go down as Disney's most successful film and beloved in recent years, I do not think that it will be remembered as their most skillfully rendered story, nor greatest on-screen couple. It will probably be remembered for making a specific statement about Prince Charmings.

PS-Here's some things that I wanted to share but never really fit into the greater whole:
I like the theory that one of my friends provided that Rapunzel's mother and Anna and Elsa's mother are sisters, thereby linking the two royal families.
The new animation style is heralding the new wave of Disney princesses, which is currently a party of three, although some say that Elsa is a Disney queen and not princess.
None of the non-villain leading men in the new wave have been princes.

Frozen: A Commentary in Seven Posts (Six)

Character Developments

This post might have a slightly misleading title. It's supposedly about character development, but it might be more about the lack of character development in the film.

Yesterday's post was focused solely on the character of Elsa, so I don't feel a great need to discuss her character arc in this post. However, a brief retracing of her's will set the pattern for everyone else.

Elsa-
Start of the film (as an adult, not as a child): Self-confining, shy, nervous, nice.
End of the film: Confident, dressed…differently, supposedly in control of her power.
How she got there: I actually don't think there was a lot in the film to warrant her transformation.

Now I will address the other main characters, specifically those in the picture above.

Anna-
Start of the film: Outgoing, concerned about her sister, convinced in true love.
End of the film: Outgoing, concerned about her sister, probably still believes in true love.
I don't see much growth in her in the film. I could just be more focused on Elsa, but I really don't think that Anna has many different opinions or motivations at the end of the movie. The biggest change I notice is the guy she is interested in.

Hans-
Start of the film: Prince Charming
End of the film: The Villain
This is probably the most drastic transition. However, as this is actually based on the facade that he presented for the first 3/4 of the film, he might not have actually made any kind of substantial change. By the end he is still motivated by the same impetus that he started.

Kristoff-
Start of the film: Ice merchant, head on straight, action oriented
End of the film: Ice merchant, a bit silly in his way of expressing affection to someone he just met
I'm tempted to call his net development a negative. His lack of taking action towards the end of the film is not especially satisfying to me.

Sven-
I feel that he is basically a stalwart rock to all the other characters in the film.

Olaf-
Start of the film: Lovable snowman, odd sense of humor (almost gallows humor)
End of the film: Lovable snowman who understands what love means, accepted other people as friends, aware of the dangers of warmth
Olaf mostly goes through a intellectual development. I would say that his character remains true, but his knowledge of the world increases.

I'd like to just end this here. I'll admit that this might be my weakest post on "Frozen," but it is what it is. I figure that one loser out of seven is still enough for a winning team.

Frozen: A Commentary in Seven Posts (Five)

Elsa

Yes, she gets her very own post. Why? Because she deserves it and there is enough to say about her that I can devote an entire day's blogging time to her character.

To start of, I want to be perfectly clear that I'm a fan of Elsa. I think she's a complex character and her "development" in the film is probably the most interesting. I like her along the same lines that I like "Wreck-it-Ralph" and Wreck-it-Ralph. I saw the movie "Wreck-it-Ralph" at least four, and possibly five (I can't actually recall to be sure) in the theaters. Ralph is one of my favorite Disney characters of all time. If "Frozen" were centered directly on Elsa's character, I would probably see it five times in the theaters. If there were a t-shirt that said "Team Elsa" on it, I would probably try to convince a friend to buy it for me for my birthday. That's how much I'm a fan of this character.

Granted, by the end of this post you might be convince that I like the concept of Elsa more than the reality (there's not a better word for that, even though she is a work of fiction), but maybe a character's potential is just as much reason to be a fan as their portrayal; Elsa is definitely a character full of potential.

I'm going to work from negative towards positive, so if you want to be upset about her character read on, but if you want to just be happy about her, skip a few paragraphs.

Thing I don't like number 1: During her awesome and epic power song they make a physical transformation in the character that I don't care for. They make the oh, so common cliche of equating power in a woman with sexiness. Power=Sexy is not an absolute.

If you watch that video at the mark of 3:13 or so you will notice that her costume and hair is different and she has a swagger in her hips that is surely detrimental to her spine, her knees, her ankles and her everything. I don't care for the exposed shoulders or the slit up the dress either. I actually think those exposures are evidence of her betrayal of her true character as a guarded individual.

Speaking of her true character (I'm a segue master!), the song "Let it Go," while epic on the scale of classic Disney, and wonderfully performed strikes be wrong in two ways. First, I love the performance of it, but I don't think that the Elsa's narrative earned that song. She went from running scared of herself  and her powers to supposedly embracing those same powers and swearing to a life of blissful seclusion (because seclusion away from people is likely to make her so much less lonely than her previous seclusion near people…) without actually experiencing any character event. She also managed to hike across a frozen wasteland and climb up that mountain in about a tenth the time other characters took, but I suppose that is a different story. My second big issue with the song is the fact that it isn't true. About twenty minutes after she sings it she is just as scared as she ever was, and uses her powers to their worst effect. Building and icy palace hasn't made her queen of anything. The next time she sees a person all her fear comes back worse than ever. She didn't actually let anything go.

This next negative is something that I have somewhat touched on thus far. Her character doesn't get to be center stage for most of the film, and doesn't get time to develop properly. I can understand Disney's choice to shy away from the villain-not-a-villain thing for this one; That was the plot of their movie the previous year. But does anyone really think that Anna is the more interesting character? Give the screen time to the girl people are rooting for!

This leads to some of the positives. Elsa has human flaws that people relate to and want to see overcome. She's shy. She's repressed. She's nervous. She wants to keep other people safe and is willing to sacrifice to do it. She has a problem with physical contact. These are human flaws. At the same time, when she tries, she can be a bit funny, a bit mischievous, and she has her head on straight when it comes to marrying people you just met. This is a person who needs a friend that understands her fears, and, more importantly, isn't afraid of the same things. What is Elsa most afraid of? Her power to create ice hurting someone. Gee, wouldn't it have been nice if there had been a character in this movie who knew something about ice. Maybe he could have known how dangerous it is and been prepared to deal with that. Maybe he could have had an appreciation for how it can be useful, and even beautiful. Maybe he could have been a character that had dealt with ice successfully their whole life and could never be afraid of it. Maybe he would have been able to recognize an accident, or a quirk of nature and not blamed her for making magic ice. Heck, maybe he could have been featured in an opening sequence, with an awesome song, alongside a dozen other people who understood all those same things and could have said something if they met Elsa. If only such a character existed…and wasn't told to wait outside at the precise moment when his awe and wonder at Elsa's power over ice could have changed the entire movie and provided a more compelling love story…

Well, that theory might have gotten away from me a bit. I also have a theory about a version of the film in which Hans had magic powers involving fire (he wear gloves just like Elsa for most of the film and takes them off dramatically just before extinguishing a candle, and I really hoped he was gonna have fire-powers) and there was going to be a fantastic and grand battle between fire and ice and Elsa would save the kingdom, as is her duty as a queen, and the people would love her and accept her, and she would finally have figured out that her love for the kingdom would help her control her powers and the fear of her powers was why she was having trouble, and , and, well that didn't happen.

I should probably wrap this up. I'm starting to get too far into the potential of her character (vast, untapped potential) and less about her reality. The reality that I do like is this: Elsa has flaws and weaknesses, but also a tremendous self-sacrificing motivation. She could use a supportive friend or two. I'm a little sad that all she ended up with was one sister.

Go Team Elsa!

Frozen: A Commentary in Seven Posts (Four)

The Love Story?

--SPOILER WARNING--

This post is going to have spoilerific discussion of film facts that might be better left to those who have either seen the film, or don’t care if they know how it ends. That’s all I’ll say on the matter. Scroll down under your own advisement and with consideration for my warning.

I put a question mark after the term “love story” on purpose with regards to this movie. Love is certainly an element in “Frozen,” but romantic love is, at the very best, irrelevant to the plot finale. The love story that does matter is more about love between two sisters, and I believe that the development of that relationship was overshadowed by the insignificant story of romance.

Part of the marketing for the film centered on the two potential love interests for the “main character,” Anna. One trailer illustrated this debate, one which Anna was ostensibly obliged to make. The nice guy, Prince Hans, was contrasted with Kristoff, the ice merchant; both of these men were contrasted with the potential scenario in which Anna saves the day without having to rely on a man for support. As mentioned in a previous post, this was part of a pseudo-female-empowerment plan. For this plan to be real, she would have had to actually save the day on her own. In some manner of speaking this is somewhat true, but more on that later.

Hans was proven to be a manipulative villain who intended to leave Anna for dead so that he could rule the kingdom by claiming to have married her and become a de facto king. This leaves Kristoff and no one as the advertised options for Anna’s affection. Ultimately it is made clear that Anna and Kristoff do become a couple, but, unlike the vast majority of Disney films, this love story doesn’t save lives, break a curse, nor even alter a law.

The love that does save the day (breaking one curse, and inspiring the epiphany that ends an eternal winter) comes in the form of Anna’s personal sacrifice to save her sister. To be perfectly honest, I think this demonstration of love as the saving grace of the story is lessened in impact by the fact that Anna still has to end up with a man. Even though she proved that her sacrificial act of love could save herself, she can’t spend any more of her fulfilled without a man.

Although there was an attempt to make Kristoff noble and sacrificing, it was forced and ultimately solved no problems. There is a moment when he rides across snow-covered hills, carrying Anna in his arms, so that she can kiss her “true love.” The moment that rings untrue is when he delivers her to the castle gates, dismounts, and leaves her in the company of servants, with hardly any indication of the severity of the situation. He then leaves the castle, dejected, trusting that her life will be saved, but not caring to make sure. His leaving without completing his mission to save her life seems to be a contrivance to facilitate increased drama ten minutes later into the film when his reindeer convinces him that it is he, Kristoff, who is Anna’s true love. That contrived moment of Kristoff not crossing the threshold into the castle took me out of the film entirely.

Now, all of this falls beside the point that I think the love stories were grossly confused in their conclusions. Kristoff ought to have been in love with the older sister, Elsa, in my opinion. Anna might have done better without a final love interest. But then again, perhaps it would have been best if she ended up with the snowman, Olaf. They seem suited to each other in my eyes. (Also there was a sequence when Olaf demonstrated his love as he risked melting to try and save Anna).

The romance between Else and Kristoff was my hope while watching the film the first time, and has persisted since. This is in part derived from my notion that Else should have been the main character, or at least significantly more featured, and in part from the connection between Kristoff and ice that is more significant than any connection I noted between him and Anna. Kristoff’s affinity for ice, and appreciating the beauty of it would have complimented Elsa’s powers. Had Disney gone for a focus on Else and a love story along the lines of their previous films, I’m sure Kristoff would have been the one to show appreciation for Elsa’s powers and changed her ways. He could have seen and described the beauty and the danger (along the lines of the first song, featuring the ice cutters and a young Kristoff) of what she could do. He also would have been the only character to show no fear for what she could do. In short, I think Disney’s effort to give sense of girl-power and love-other-than-romantic shot them in the foot and prevented them from telling a love story to rival their best ones. Now, that love story might have mirrored “Beauty and the Beast” too closely for some people’s tastes, but that is a classic film and one of Disney’s best. And they could do worse than parallel that story more than 20 years later.

Frozen: A Commentary in Seven Posts (Three)

Critical Reception:

In some ways this is the easy one. I can just post some reviews for the film and talk about them. The bulk of the work is on you, dear reader. You have to go to all that trouble of opening the links in new tabs and glancing through them. I hope you can handle it.

This is also a chance to vent a bit. (SPOILER WARNING) This here article (SPOILER OVER) is just not a classy move on a news website. The title is a spoiler! Bad form! I don't know if the blame lies with the author or the site managers, but it really cheesed me off, as this was the first article I saw about the film after its release. So, my experience was colored a bit by having the "big reveal" announced two weeks before I even saw the film.

Here's some other reviews I grabbed:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2013/11/26/frozen-review/2941351/

http://www.vulture.com/2013/11/movie-review-frozen.html

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/frozen-2013

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/01/how-parents-can-turn-em-frozens-em-big-twist-into-a-teachable-moment/283055/

Admittedly, the last one isn't so much a review as a musing about the film, but I like it and I think there are some good points worth sharing.

Based on my past experience (at least one example of which is on this blog), the big surprise here is from USA Today. I don't care for Claudia's reviews, nor her writing style. She tends to try hard to make adjectival puns in reference to the content of the film, and it usually seems strained. I also find her overall (excessive, overwrought?) use of adjectives to be assaulting. I've never seen her give four out of four. She's usually very harsh on films which, at the very least, aren't so bad. Her reviews for "Thor: The Dark World" and "Pacific Rim" especially got hit hard. It's like she didn't know what she was going in for. All of that is background for me to say that I don't trust her, and that makes a four out of four star rating more than mite bit suspicious in my eyes.

I should be clear that I have a very positive view of the film. I really did enjoy it. I laughed. I smiled. I might have been a little moist in the eye a few times. Maybe it's a little bit of my internal contrarian, or perhaps just my training to analyze combined with my person tendency to think about things way more then they really should ever be thought about, but I can't bring myself to give it a review above 3 stars (maybe 3.5 if someone gave me a personal argument) our of four in my book. I think that's pretty darn good. (To borrow the rating system from a podcast I enjoy, this would still be "Best Movie Ever.")

A more complex and complete discussion of my true opinion, and the reasons behind it, will come on Sunday. I can warn you, it is going to sound really harsh, but mostly because it will be the time for me to "let it go" as far as my hits against the film.